


Jello On My Mind

by NiceSideOfTheMoon



Category: Friends (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bisexual Chandler Bing, But yeah chandler made out with some guy at a party, Canon-Typical Homophobia, Chandler was very drunk, Episode: s03e11 The One Where Chandler Can't Remember Which Sister, Fluff, Found Family, Friendship, Hangover, Internalized Biphobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, No real ship, One Shot, Period-Typical Homophobia, Sexuality Crisis, So i made this fic to find a reason for it, This is loosely based on 3x11, gotta love the 90ies, it's more like a character study i guess, no beta we die as if phoebe went to the dentist and we were one of her friends, sorry chandler but ya homophobic!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29261349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NiceSideOfTheMoon/pseuds/NiceSideOfTheMoon
Summary: Chandler gets blackout drunk and visits his friends the next morning. They seem to remember something he did and are being annoying about it. When they finally talk he has to come to terms with some stuff. (It's bisexuality.)I think this might be more angsty then planed? But also fun! I think. I think this might be funny.
Relationships: Chandler Bing & Joey Tribbiani, Chandler Bing & Monica Geller, Chandler Bing & Phoebe Buffay, Chandler Bing & Phoebe Buffay & Monica Geller & Ross Geller & Rachel Green & Joey Tribbiani, Chandler Bing & Rachel Green, Chandler Bing & Ross Geller, Chandler Bing/Original Character(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22





	Jello On My Mind

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a song by Half Moon Run. The song is either a very obvious metaphor about sex or just about a guy really enjoying jell-o. I hope for the last one. It has nothing to do with this fic but it’s my favorite band and titles are very difficult, okay?
> 
> This is my first fic that is not even a tiny bit parodic and yet it is about Chandler Bing?? Who would have known! I watched too much “Friends” and got emotional, okay? I might have worked through some personal stuff while writing this, as well? Also, English is not my first language and I don’t have a beta reader but who needs that when you’re getting emotional about fictional characters, right? RIGHT?

When he stepped into Monica’s apartment he was greeted with loud cheering. 

“Hrghhh”, said Chandler and supported his argument with big hand gestures. “My head is killing me, guys. No cheering! No woo-ing! Not today!” His voice wasn’t venomous, because there was no energy left in him. He had used it all to down a truckload of jell-o shots the day before.

“You really seemed to enjoy the party, huh?” Monica smiled mischievously. 

There are very few stress-free greetings you can receive after getting blackout drunk the day before and stumbling into your friend’s apartment. “You really seemed to enjoy the party, huh?” was not one of them. 

God, what had he done? He could not remember for the life of him. Had he maybe said something stupid? He discarded that thought immediately. Of course, he had said something stupid. He always did. In fact, very few days had gone by where he hadn’t said something stupid. 

Chandler got bored of (and frankly, exhausted from) staring grimly at Monica for knowing something he didn’t knew and turned his gaze to the others. 

Rachel was biting her lip and chuckling, Phoebe beamed at him… proudly? Was that pride? And Ross had raised his eyebrows so high, they looked like they were questioning god. Even though they were just questioning Chandler. 

What for though? Had he danced? Had he danced WITH someone? Dear god, had he danced FOR someone?

“Okay, as much as I enjoy being made fun of for something I can’t remember, please stop staring at me.” He sat down at the kitchen table, beat. “It’s like when my aunts made fun of me for peeing at Uncle Gregg when I was three. Great story. Even after 25 years! Ha-ha.” Then he threw his head into his hands. 

“Honey, nobody is making fun of you!”, said Rachel.

“I’m kind of making fun of him.” Monica looked at her, confused. “Are we not making fun of him?”

“I think it was cute”, giggled Phoebe.

“Uhm.” Ross looked at Chandler sternly. “I have questions, man. I’m just confused.”

“Well, so is Chandler”, interjected Monica. 

Everybody in the room was screaming with laughter. 

Everybody except for Chandler of course. He was filled with dread. Dread and alcohol. “Why do I hate myself?”, he asked loudly. “What is wrong with me? Why did I drink so much? WHAT HAPPENED?”

His friends were still laughing when Joey came through the door. 

“Morning guys!” He gave his miserable, hungover friend a knowing glance. His voice got all… sleazy. “Morning Chandler! How was your night?”

“Why? Why? Why, Joe? Why?”, Chandler asked, being his most articulate self. He looked at the others, just a tiny bit panicky. “Why is he talking like this? What happened?”

“What do you think happened?”, asked Monica and she gave him the grin she usually saved for embarrassing stories from Ross’s childhood. 

“Yeah, can you remember nothing?” Rachel seemed to be genuinely interested and less jokingly than the others. Was there a little bit of worry in her voice? Oh god, that couldn’t be good.

“I can remember drinking all the jello shots in NEW YORK!”, Chandler grunted. “And then I vaguely remember some dancing… Was it the dancing?”

“You kissed someone”, Phoebe then blurted out. Surprised by herself she covered her mouth with her hands but there was no guilt in her eyes, only mischief. 

Chandler let out an exhausted sigh. Yeah, that was just like him. “Was it one of you guys? I tend to get overly familiar when I’m drunk. I’m sorry!”

Rachel cleared her throat awkwardly. “Well, there was some… Kissing.” Oh great! “But it was just like… A little peck. It was fine.”

He couldn’t believe he kissed Rachel. Not that he found her unattractive. Quite the contrary, in fact. But she was a close friend and kissing his friends was not something he did or planned on starting now. “I’m really sorry!”, he said and hoped that she got how earnest his apology was.

“It’s fine.”, Rachel said, and she seemed to mean it. 

“Yeah, it’s okay”, Monika mumbled. 

“Hmm… I’ve had better, I had worse!”, was Phoebe’s conclusion on his skills. 

“Just don’t… do it again, okay?”, said Ross. 

ROSS?

“Yeah, that wasn’t my favorite thing in the world”, Joey pointed out.

Chandler looked around him, his eyes wide open with shock. “I kissed… I kissed ALL of you?”

“Sure did”, Monika called out in her sing sang voice.

“Wait… even… even the GUYS?”

“Yep!”, said Ross and he didn’t seem too happy about it. Not that Chandler was any happier.   
He stood up fast and paced through the room. He was thinking about what to say, about making a joke. But he actually just felt miserable to have made his five best friends so uncomfortable. 

“But that’s not everyone you kissed!”, Joey stated. 

Chandler came to an abrupt halt. Slowly, dramatically, his body turned to his roommate and looked him into the eyes. There was an amused twinkle in Joey’s eyes as if the best part was yet to come. 

“Joe, please do me a favor.”, Chandler called out. “Shoot me now! Shoot me in the head! I don’t need to hear the rest! In fact, I never need to hear anything ever again!” With that he stormed over to the couch where Phoebe and Ross where sitting, thought about sitting down, made a weird turn when he realized he didn’t want to, walked over to Rachel’s door, stopped again in front of it, turned around and faced everyone, noticed he couldn’t deal with their stares, looked to the floor, and made a weird pirouette hoping it would trigger some make-me-disappear-magic.

“You know, you kissed half of the party guests.”, Joey continued mercilessly. “But one of them got a bit more of your soft, soft lips.” And then he made smooching sounds and winked at him.

That was when something dawned on Chandler. A faint memory of a tongue in his mouth and hands in his hair. They were leaning in some door frame. Maybe of the bathroom? He didn’t quite get the full picture yet. 

“I remember kissing someone”, he said, full of dread. “I remember kissing someone”, he said again, now much louder. “Who was I kissing? Why are you all staring at me like that? What did I do?” His head hurt like hell from the screaming, but he just couldn’t keep calm anymore. This was the world’s worst hangover. 

“Don’t worry!”, said Monica. “You kissed someone very cute!” But her smile said: “Worry, Chandler. Worry for your life!”

“Okay”, he winced, not letting his guard down. 

“That’s true!” Phoebe nodded at her. “SO cute! And nice as well!”

“Please just say it.” Chandler was looking at them through in between his fingers and he was sweating like a pig. This wasn’t fair. This was “I’m leaving your mom for the pool boy”-unfair!

“Don’t worry, you made out with someone very attractive!”, Joey giggled. “At least the girls said so.”

“Why, you didn’t think she was attractive?” In all his years with Joey Chandler had rarely seen him being unaffected by a woman’s charm.

Ross laughed at that. “Hrm! Hrm!”, he made. A harrumph noise he tended to make when he was nervous or about to make a joke. “I just don’t think Joey’s attracted to guys.”

Well this comment just straight out didn’t make sen-

Chandlers brain malfunctioned. 

It was like he had one of these puzzles in his brain that asked him to connect two dots and he started to draw the line but shortly before it reached the second dot his hand jerked away into the void of his paralyzed brain functions. Or… some better metaphor.

“G-g-”, he stammered. “Guys?”

“Yeah, Chandler, he was totally cute!” Monica winked at him. Would they stop with the winking?

And then he remembered. The scratchy chin against his. His own hand on a strong arm. The smell of the person he kissed, far too musky to be a woman.

And what a kiss it had been! It had been a wanting kiss, a long time coming, a long time wished for. Not necessarily with this guy. Had he even known the guy? But with some guy. Some man. Some strong man with a stubble and great lips and great smell and-

Chandler sat down. There wasn’t a chair, so he landed somewhere on the floor of Monica’s living room. 

“Huh, I really did that, hm?”, he breathed out quietly.

This was probably the point where his friends realized that teasing him for making out with a guy had not been their most empathetic behavior. Mainly because Chandler was sitting on the floor, looking lost, feeling lost, realizing he had been living a lie for all of his life. 

It sounded so dramatic. It sounded like he had never enjoyed a single one of his romantic encounters. That was not correct. He really liked women and he didn’t regret being with them. But there always had been… thoughts about guys he had pushed down. Moments he had thought about for month and years after they had happened, wondering what would have happened if he hadn’t run away. Hadn’t made a defensive joke about his dad and his screwed-up childhood instead of making a move.

He thought about all those people who believed he was gay when they met him. That had told him that this was who he was. But no, he wasn’t gay. Because he liked women. It was that easy. He was not gay, he was NOT gay. That’s what he had said, and it had been true, and it had been a lie. Because he still hadn’t been honest to himself. Had blamed his dad for screwing him up. And his mom as well, of course. They screwed him up so badly, that sometimes he was thinking weird stuff about guys that he didn’t actually mean. Because everyone has thoughts like that, he had told himself. And dreams as well. 

Maybe if he had talked to his father and not just ignored him for the past few years… Maybe acknowledging his dad’s reasons to leave instead of painting him as the bad guy and by that equalizing a gay lifestyle with something bad…

He never wanted to be homophobic, not really. He tried to be cool with it. But he couldn’t help – and he hated himself for it – to see gay men as bad guys. Because gay guys left their children with their weird mom, who left them by themselves far too often. Being gay made others sad. Sad and lonely. And so, Chandler could not be gay. Because he didn’t want to make others feel bad.

Was he spiraling? He was definitely spiraling!

His friends didn’t know that, but he hadn’t talked in a while, had not made a joke to fill the awkward silence. And they knew him just too well to not be alarmed by that. 

Not long after half-collapsing on the floor he found himself being wrapped in several hugs by a whole bunch of people around him, stroking his hair and giving him little kisses on his head. 

“Hey, honey, we love you!”, said Rachel softly and squeezed him even more.

“Yeah, man!”, exclaimed Joey and his voice sounded like he was half crying already. “I love you, man!”

“You’re still our friend, Chandler.” And even though he wasn’t looking at anyone he heard the smile behind Phoebes voice.

They all hugged him and told him they loved him for a long time that should have felt uncomfortable, but Chandler was still so half in shock that he didn’t find it in him to care. 

His friends showing their affection for him was something he usually couldn’t deal with, but he realized he badly needed it. Especially right now. Not long and he was smiling carefully and hugging back. To be accepted so quickly and whole-heartedly meant more to him than he could have imagined before. He had finally been himself and his friends had seen him and loved him just the same. And there was his second revelation of the morning: He felt safe with his friends. Safe and at home.

Nobody was hurt. Nobody felt left alone, felt lied to, felt disappointed in him. They just loved him. Guilt washed over him when he realized that it was just the opposite reaction than the one, he had given to his dad. He needed to apologize. Maybe not now. It wasn’t that easy too… There was a lot to unpack. And it was a bit too much, because right now he was STILL sitting on Monica’s rug and his friends where worried because minutes had passed, and he still hadn’t made a joke. 

“Hey, uhm. Guys?”, he mumbled and then cleared his throat. They gave him a bit of space so he could breathe, and they could look at him properly. He finally managed to meet their eyes. (No, not simultaneously.) “I think I like men as well…” It was supposed to come out as a kind of joke but actually it sounded weak and shy. And exhausted. Because well… he was. All this realizing and hugging and realizing again had taken a lot of energy from him.

Phoebe grabbed his knee and squeezed it gently and everyone was sending out soft smiles. It was a bit too much for Chandler now. He was not THAT in touch with himself and his emotions. The silence suddenly seemed too awkward and his friends too genuine. But thank god for Joey. 

“We know you like guys, Chan! You made out with one yesterday!” This was met with a lot of eye-rolling. “What, we just talked about it! Can’t you guys remember?”

At this they had to laugh, and it wasn’t even that funny, but the built-up tension had been weighing on all of them and it was great to release this weird energy.

“So who was that guy anyway?”, asked Monica. “Do you have his number?”

“Wait, I thought YOU knew who he was?”, Chandler asked, incredulous. 

Ross shook his head. “No, we’ve got no idea!”

“What, so you don’t know who he was? Not even his name?” Rachel sounded a bit disappointed, but Chandler realized, so was he. He might or might not be ready for dating – he had time enough to ponder over that later – but he really wished he at least knew the guy’s name.

“No! I can’t believe I’m as unlucky with guys as with women! I have no idea who that was!”

“Aww, now you’re one of us!”, cheered Monika. “We can talk about mean boys together!”

“Weeheew! One of the girls!”, said Chandler with all the sarcasm he could put into these five words. “Finally, a way to emasculate me even more. Thank you, Mon!”

“Yeah, Mon, that was kind of homophobic, if you think about it.”, Phoebe reflected. 

“Technically, it can’t be homophobic because Chandler is not gay”, argued Ross with his annoying scientist voice. 

Chandler rolled his eyes. “Gee, Ross, are you the expert on queers now since your ex-wife is gay? Did she give you a free lesson?”

“Ha-ha, yeah, I’m sorry!” 

Luckily, it felt easy to talk and joke about it and Chandler felt more at ease every second. 

Joey, however, felt more at confusion. “So, when you’re not… you know… gay… And you’re not straight…” He used his hands an awful lot so others could understand him better (even though they did anyway). “…then what are you, man?”

“Well, I’m what the kids call bisexual, Joseph.” Chandler kind of regretted the jokey undertone but he wasn’t perfect, and he was proud he was able to say it out loud at all. “Watch me now fail at relationships with women” (here he made a dramatic pause) “AND men!”

“I can’t believe you blew the one shot you had with a guy…”, Monica sighed.

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean? I can get another guy! I have other shots!”

Nobody said anything. 

“Hey, men would find me attractive, right?”

Awkward gazes where exchanged. 

“Guys? Guys come on!”

“Maybe that nearly cute geeky guy from your office is still available?”, Phoebe asked.

“Oh, I hate you people!”, Chandler said, and it sounded way too fondly.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello please be kind I'm very nervous about this...


End file.
